South County editorial: Southwestern desigining a gem

Southwestern College’s flagship Chula Vista campus is about to have a face-lift and what an impressive makeover it will be.

The troublesome corner lot at East H Street and Otay Lakes Road, some 9.4 acres now languishing as a gravel parking lot, is about to become the place where town meets gown. Parents and students will get their first introduction to community college life here via a relocated administration center. More than that, this corner will be where the community at large, as well as the college community, can sample offerings at the bookstore, food court, art gallery and wellness center.

For the region’s second-largest city and one critically short on meeting space, the corner lot will have 6,000 square feet of conference rooms with convenient parking nearby. The current 434 spaces in unsightly surface configuration will become 800, mostly out of view.

BCA Architects has designed the $70 million piece of an overall expansion that is the college’s largest project since it was born in 1961.

An esplanade will be pointed toward Bonita Vista High School catty-cornered across probably the city’s busiest intersection. Lights, fountains and building facades in reinterpreted Mayan architecture style will border what is expected to be an inviting walkway.

The construction team plans to seek the platinum level of certification, the highest in energy and environmental design. Relocation of administrative and public-oriented facilities to the corner lot will free up space in the campus interior for new classrooms.

The conceptual designs are currently being vetted with community groups and by the end of summer tweaked versions will be presented to the board. Groundbreaking might occur this year with completion anticipated in 2013.

College President Raj Chopra called for a design competition and asked respondents to compete as well on the pricing of their services. Through that process, he said the college saved $3 million from traditionally priced architectural fees.

The corner lot has had a checkered history. In 2003, a developer gave up on a revenue-producing shopping mall proposed for the lot because of community and City Council opposition. And former college President Serafin Zasueta, who brokered that deal, later left the college following charges that he used college money to influence a bond issue.

Until Chula Vista’s dream of a four-year university materializes, Southwestern is higher education in the South County. Little could voters realize when they approved a $389 million bond issue in 2008 how important the resulting construction jobs still on the horizon will be to the South Bay economy.

That $389 million is a plum too large for some special interests to ignore. Organized labor is expected to promote a labor-friendly slate of candidates this fall in a bid to capture the Southwestern College board and forge union-labor-only agreements.

The passage of Proposition G this month, banning the city of Chula Vista from requiring project labor agreements on civic projects, will have a sequel of sorts in November at Southwestern.